A3K Panel

Special Note:

There will be spoilers in this podcast. We will spoil the mess out of Hunter x Hunter.

Synopsis:

In this conversation, Sean Russell and Max Vader go head to head debating the good and bad merits of Hunter x Hunter. On one side, Sean Russell is a huge fan of both the anime and manga enjoying both the characters and unpredictability of the series. Max on the other hand takes issues with the characters, overall writing and the general world building. Chime in on our comments section on how you think it went and what you think about the series. Get your notepads, we cover a lot of ground in this two hour conversation.

References:

CONTACT US

I gotta say, Max won this hands down. I’m not saying that because he’s my co-host and friend (because lord knows we’ve disagreed with each other), but because in this whole podcast Max was able to state the larger logical fallacies of the series, whereas Sean simply could not view these points out of character, or the context of the plot. In terms of Greed Island, Max explains the MASSIVE issues with the premise of Greed Island, Sean’s point was “it makes sense to me,” and couldn’t logically explain the game itself. Just that “it’s a video game like they said it was. Video games exist.” Meanwhile Max was able to spell out, multiple times, the logical fallacies in the plot itself, from a writing standpoint. Meanwhile, Sean simply accepted what HunterXHunter tells him and argues everything from an in-universe standpoint. And even then, many of his arguments were “well it COULD be–” or “it was probably because of this thing that was never brought up” or “maybe it’s actually THIS way, we don’t know.” Max had points backed up with evidence. And when the argument to be made is “is this show good or not” and one guy’s points are based on the content actually in the show, the results are clear.

Also there were a few moments Max pretty much delivered a few death blows. Most notable “unless you can recite exactly where they say that, I have to think you’re pulling that out of your ass” “actually I CAN recite exactly where they say that” and then he does. Also the Phantom troupe, where Sean seemed to forget Max’s point was the atrocities they committed meant they couldn’t then suddenly be sympathetic characters in the next arc, so he spent time making Max’s own point about them being sociopathic and evil for him. Then Max drops “then they can’t be likable” and boom. Atom bomb explosion footage goes here. Those were some two significant “gotcha” moments.

Overall, Sean was too rooted in HxH’s story and mythos, bought what was sold to him, and argued for things in-universe. Max argued things from a narrative and writing standpoint. When he said things were bad, he backed it up with in-deoth explanations, Sean just answered with “I disagree” and told the story without explaining how things made sense when Max explained why they didn’t.

“I gotta say, Max won this hands down. I’m not saying that because he’s my co-host and friend (because lord knows we’ve disagreed with each other), but because in this whole podcast Max was able to state the larger logical fallacies of the series, whereas Sean simply could not view these points out of character, or the context of the plot.”

So with that being said, should I have judged the series against the real world? I found the entire argument that the show was nonsensical to be absolutely ridiculous. Just because you disagree, doesn’t mean that I didn’t prove my point. Especially considering that you haven’t experienced this series on any level outside of cynical bullet points. Other than spouting off four pages of facts about the show, I often wondered if Max watched all 117 episodes of the series himself. Case in point, he kept saying they were just sitting around doing nothing for the thirty days leading up to the attack. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Here is a rough timeline of what happened in that arc.

The queen emerges from the beach and settles in the cave to give birth to her first group of soldiers. The soldiers begin to capture the villagers, bringing them back as food. This goes unnoticed for a period of time based on the preexisting politics of that particular nation, seeing that it was already war torn with the two factions being at war. Hunters are dispatched to investigate reports of disappearing villagers. While we get a front row seat to what’s happening, the outside world is still in the dark. The soldiers are able to defeat a few Hunters and proceed to feed them to the queen. This produces ants with Nen abilities, giving way to the royal guards and the King. Reports get back to the world governments and the Hunter Association and The Chairman step in, more than likely out of morbid fascination about the power of these creatures. He puts together a team with some floating variables. These variables connect the story with our main characters. Keep in mind, Max’s argument was that it was nonsensical that nothing was being done during this time and I clearly am explaining that something was being done both in this explanation and on the podcast. Gon and Killua continue their training with a character from the previous arc and in typical HxH fashion, fail to reach their objective.

The A Team arrives shortly after Pitou is hatched and realize that this problem is way bigger than they first imagined. Now it could be argued that this is when they should have brought in the big guns. To say that would mean that The Chairman didn’t have a plan, which he in fact did. The plan was to infiltrate their base with Palm, set up escape routes with Knov, try to create a counter insurgency with Killuia and Morel and once the plan kicked in, divide and conquer. Once again, how does this not make sense? Also keep in mind, this entire plan is revealed in real time, so we don’t know what’s happening until it happens. At no point are we given an inside view of how this is all going to play out, another aspect I love about this show. At the same time when “nothing is being done,” The A Team is disposing of some of the most powerful ants. By the time the plan goes into action, there are only a handful still alive, most of which serve a greater purpose in helping our heroes carry out their mission.

“In terms of Greed Island, Max explains the MASSIVE issues with the premise of Greed Island, Sean’s point was “it makes sense to me,” and couldn’t logically explain the game itself. Just that “it’s a video game like they said it was. Video games exist.” Meanwhile Max was able to spell out, multiple times, the logical fallacies in the plot itself, from a writing standpoint. Meanwhile, Sean simply accepted what Hunter X Hunter tells him and argues everything from an in-universe standpoint. And even then, many of his arguments were “well it COULD be–” or “it was probably because of this thing that was never brought up” or “maybe it’s actually THIS way, we don’t know.” Max had points backed up with evidence. And when the argument to be made is “is this show good or not” and one guy’s points are based on the content actually in the show, the results are clear.”

??? So in judging wether or not a show is good, I shouldn’t base my points on the show’s content? That’s like playing basketball with a volleyball, I mean they’re both balls, so shouldn’t the same rules apply? This is a universe created by one guy and you are essentially arguing that this person doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s his universe and we have to conform to his imagination. You are more than welcome to disagree with him, but you can’t really expect anyone to take you seriously if you say it doesn’t make sense. Let’s forget for a second that they are ants with magical powers. I didn’t want to be that guy during the podcast, but that was the engine behind my rebuttals. From what I gathered, Max’s main issue was that their plan didn’t make sense. Then when given the chance to come up with a better plan, it was essentially what they did minus a few details. So my job was to basically debate a person that thought his fan fiction was better than the creator’s original intent. I said it in the podcast and I will say it again, his reasoning makes no sense.

As far as explaining the game is concerned, it was developed as a fools errand for 99% of the people that participated. Given that the point of this particular arc was to give Gon life experience and increased abilities, the game didn’t really need to make perfect sense to the viewer. I know that might be hard to believe, but things don’t always make sense. That doesn’t make the show awful or constitute bad writing. The world is a vampire. Things don’t always make perfect sense and that’s why I would argue that in the context of the narrative, the nonsensical nature of this game made perfect sense. Simply because Max failed to realize this point doesn’t make my argument less valid. While I applaud Max’s ability to write four pages of proof on why he doesn’t get something, it seemed like a gigantic waste of time. Especially considering that I was able to make my point without knowing the framing of his arguments ahead of time.

“Essentially, Sean seemed unable to grasp the idea of plausibility, whereas Max explained why the plot of Hunter X Hunter was objectively implausible. Also, “this is Gon’s story” doesn’t justify implausible plot points. Stories with plausible logic in them are also the stories of specific character. For instance, Berserk is Guts’ story. It’s about Guts, his life, his journey, etc. But the plot doesn’t need to throw logic out the window to do this.”

Did you seriously just compare Berserk to Hunter x Hunter? At the end of the day, HxH is a show aimed at children. The mere fact that someone is saying that the show had implausible plot points makes me laugh. Nevertheless, I played this game and explained why it made sense. To quote a wise man, “IT’S A CARTOON!”. If it doesn’t make sense to you, turn off the show and watch something that does. Why someone would spend 117 episodes watching something, only to sit there and deconstruct the writing is beyond me. That being said, see my previous points on why I think it does make sense. Just because you want to call an audible on my definition of plausibility, doesn’t make you correct.

“Also there were a few moments Max pretty much delivered a few death blows. Most notable “unless you can recite exactly where they say that, I have to think you’re pulling that out of your ass” “actually I CAN recite exactly where they say that” and then he does.”

I should just stop commenting because you obviously didn’t hear that entire conversation. So here is what actually happened. Max said that The Chairman was supposedly the most powerful person in the Hunter Association and I called bullshit. After calling him out, Max through his own admission stated that he “WAS” the most powerful person and is currently at half his strength. So how exactly was that a death blow? The point of the entire conversation was to illustrate that other more powerful nen users were in this universe that could have easily taken care of the King.

“Also the Phantom troupe, where Sean seemed to forget Max’s point was the atrocities they committed meant they couldn’t then suddenly be sympathetic characters in the next arc, so he spent time making Max’s own point about them being sociopathic and evil for him. Then Max drops “then they can’t be likable” and boom. Atom bomb explosion footage goes here. Those were some two significant “gotcha” moments.”

Looking back into our own history, countless atrocities have been committed by people who are considered by some to be redeemable. For goodness sakes, America became allies with Stalin! I will state that morality can be subjective based on the user’s point of view. The United States is the perfect example. They enslaved an entire race of people, committed genocide, watched genocides happen on multiple occasions without lifting a finger and destroyed millions of lives through bombings and other acts of war, yet it can be argued that they’re not evil. I can go on and on, but I don’t want a repeat of our political slugfest from the A3K Podcast archives.

“Overall, Sean was too rooted in HxH’s story and mythos, bought what was sold to him, and argued for things in-universe. Max argued things from a narrative and writing standpoint. When he said things were bad, he backed it up with in-depth explanations, Sean just answered with “I disagree” and told the story without explaining how things made sense when Max explained why they didn’t.”

I would argue that when you’re dealing with a work of fiction, that’s all you can really do. Stick to the facts, which in this case, is the story. You cannot compare what happens in Hunter x Hunter with what happens in the real world due to the nature of the story. If the setting was slightly more realistic, then I can see your point. Even your example of Berserk is slightly rooted in reality. Hunter x Hunter is a shonen anime series about creatures with super powers and Max’s main argument was that their plan to defeat the ants made no sense. Short answer, I disagree, long answer, read my explanation above or really listen to the podcast.

Max-Vader

In the words of the Joker: “And here… we… go.”
“So with that being said, should I have judged the series against the real world?”
You make similar points throughout, but since this is the first time in this post you bring it up, I’m just going to quote that bit. Here is what you continue to fail to understand: My arguments about the events in HxH being nonsensical are not in the vein of “why doesn’t Dr. Evil just pull out a gun and shoot Austin Powers?”. I am well aware any fictional show operates under it’s own laws (like the way Saiyans get stronger whenever they almost die in DBZ, for example). Here’s the thing, though. You can have a world that’s different from this one, drastically different, even. But you can’t have people act like utter imbeclies for no good reason and you can’t have things happening that violate all logic without providing an explanation why this is the case.
“I often wondered if Max watched all 117 episodes of the series himself.”
Given that I know more about the show than you do… yes.
“The plan was to infiltrate their base with Palm, set up escape routes with Knov, try to create a counter insurgency with Killuia and Morel andonce the plan kicked in, divide and conquer. Once again, how does this not make sense?”
Because as I explained several times, the entire plan:
A. Hinged on the chairman fighting the Chimera Ant King even though he couldn’t even defeat a Royal Guard
B: Instead of going and killing the King before he is born, they just jerk around for thirty days to see what happens and then after he is born, they wait a bit more, all the while innocent people die by the thousands
You could argue that they carried out this plan instead the much better one I outlined because the Chairman is a psycho who wants to fight the King no matter what and is willing to risk the future of humanity for it, but then i have to ask why we are supposed to be rooting for these assholes.
“So my job was to basically debate a person that thought his fan fiction was better than the creator’s original intent.”
I’m a little bit insulted. But either way, I refer you to my first point. Answer me this: If I were to say for example that the End of Evangelion makes no goddamn sense and outline several ways in which it could have been written more plausibly, does that mean my “fanfiction” still isn’t better than “the creator’s original intent”? Or in other words, if the writer really sucks at his job, is he immune from criticism because he is the writer and can write whatever he wants and we are not? That’s asinine. And you probably wouldn’t apply those standards to anything else because then you couldn’t criticise any show in existence or say it’s bad.
“I know that might be hard to believe, but things don’t always make sense.”
No, everything that happens in the real world makes sense, we just sometimes don’t know because we lack the knowledge that shows us why event X makes sense. So in that regard, we are like the shonen protagonist. The author is as far as his work goes omniscient, so while he doesn’t have to show the explanation to his characters, he has to convey it to us either sooner or later, and if he doesn’t do that at all it’s BAD WRITING.
“To quote a wise man, “IT’S A CARTOON!”. If it doesn’t make sense to you, turn off the show and watch something that does.”
See, you’re doing it again, except in a slightly different way. This time, you’re basically going “it’s a cartoon, who cares if it’s badly written”? Which is fine, but then don’t contradict yourself and claim it’s good. Also, nice little attempt to sneak “it doesn’t make sense to YOU” in there, as if it imply that we were just incapable of grasping how HxH makes perfect sense. Sorry, it doesn’t make sense, period.
” After calling him out, Max through his own admission stated that he “WAS” the most powerful person and is currently at half his strength.”
Bullshit. You didn’t call me out on crap. I said he was twice as powerful in his prime and he is STILL the most powerful Nen-user.
“The point of the entire conversation was to illustrate that other more powerful nen users were in this universe that could have easily taken care of the King.”
Again, bullshit. There was nothing in the series that indicates that, even now. You’re flat-out making shit up.
“I will state that morality can be subjective based on the user’s point of view. The United States is the perfect example. They enslaved an entire race of people, committed genocide, watched genocides happen on multiple occasions without lifting a finger and destroyed millions of lives through bombings and other acts of war, yet it can be argued that they’re not evil.”
…holy shit, you actually said that. I’m not gonna go into this, but here is one major reason why this is nonsense: It’s a false analogy. A country with a population of 313 million is not the same as a group of about a dozen people.
“I would argue that when you’re dealing with a work of fiction, that’s
all you can really do. Stick to the facts, which in this case, is the
story. You cannot compare what happens in Hunter x Hunter with what happens in the real world due to the nature of the story.”
You know what? Fine then. But if you’re going to argue that, you’d better apply this as a consistent standard, otherwise your entire argument just boils down to what’s called “special pleading” (look it up). And you know what that means when you actually use it on every work of fiction? It means that you invalidate your opinion on every fictional work because you have no way of determining if anything is better or worse. After all, as long as a story is fiction, anything goes. If I were to write a story in which the villain defeats the heroes at the end and then is struck by a bolt of lightning even though lightning didn’t exist in this world but suddenly just before the fight it came back, you couldn’t say that what I wrote was in any way bad or incorrect. If you’re prepared for the consequences, then by all means, take that ridiculous stance.

~~~~”So with that being said, should I have judged the series against the real world?”
You make similar points throughout, but since this is the first time in this post you bring it up, I’m just going to quote that bit. Here is what you continue to fail to understand: My arguments about the events in HxH being nonsensical are not in the vein of “why doesn’t Dr. Evil just pull out a gun and shoot Austin Powers?”. I am well aware any fictional show operates under it’s own laws (like the way Saiyans get stronger whenever they almost die in DBZ, for example). Here’s the thing, though. You can have a world that’s different from this one, drastically different, even. But you can’t have people act like utter imbeclies for no good reason and you can’t have things happening that violate all logic without providing an explanation why this is the case.~~~

Your argument’s framework is that the characters act like imbeciles. I’ve explained both in my reply and in the podcast how that isn’t the case.

~~~”I often wondered if Max watched all 117 episodes of the series himself.”
Given that I know more about the show than you do… yes.~~~

I will admit that I’m not one for taking notes or remembering “certain” details… memory issues. That doesn’t mean you know more about the series. Your argument boiled down to the fact that the actions of the hunters required giant leaps in logic in order to make sense. I countered that by doing my best to explain why their plan and actions made sense. If you disagree with my logic, then explain why that doesn’t make sense.

~~~”The plan was to infiltrate their base with Palm, set up escape routes with Knov, try to create a counter insurgency with Killuia and Morel andonce the plan kicked in, divide and conquer. Once again, how does this not make sense?”
Because as I explained several times, the entire plan:
A. Hinged on the chairman fighting the Chimera Ant King even though he couldn’t even defeat a Royal Guard~~~

Just because he couldn’t defeat the Royal Guard doesn’t mean the plan wouldn’t work. That’s what you’re failing to realize. I explained this before. The plan wasn’t about the chairman beating the King in a head to head match, it was him destroying the King with the bomb. Why would the chairman fight Pitou when the clear objective was to destroy the head of the colony?

~~~B: Instead of going and killing the King before he is born, they just jerk around for thirty days to see what happens and then after he is born, they wait a bit more, all the while innocent people die by the thousands
You could argue that they carried out this plan instead the much better one I outlined because the Chairman is a psycho who wants to fight the King no matter what and is willing to risk the future of humanity for it, but then i have to ask why we are supposed to be rooting for these assholes.~~~

Are you serious? I explained why they didn’t kill the king and innocent people didn’t die by the thousands. They stopped the mass slaughter of innocent people at the end of the arc. The innocent people that did die prompted the initial involvement of the Hunter’s Association, way before the King was born.

~~~”So my job was to basically debate a person that thought his fan fiction was better than the creator’s original intent.”
I’m a little bit insulted. But either way, I refer you to my first point. Answer me this: If I were to say for example that the End of Evangelion makes no goddamn sense and outline several ways in which it could have been written more plausibly, does that mean my “fanfiction” still isn’t better than “the creator’s original intent”? Or in other words, if the writer really sucks at his job, is he immune from criticism because he is the writer and can write whatever he wants and we are not? That’s asinine. And you probably wouldn’t apply those standards to anything else because then you couldn’t criticise any show in existence or say it’s bad.~~~

I will apologize for the fan fiction comment, but my point remains the same. There is a difference between sloppy storytelling and a difference in opinion about where the story should go. It was revealed that the End of Evangelion was impacted by certain external elements. You are arguing that Hunter x Hunter has bad writing because the characters are imbeciles. I’ve explained why this is false.

~~~”I know that might be hard to believe, but things don’t always make sense.”
No, everything that happens in the real world makes sense, we just sometimes don’t know because we lack the knowledge that shows us why event X makes sense. So in that regard, we are like the shonen protagonist. The author is as far as his work goes omniscient, so while he doesn’t have to show the explanation to his characters, he has to convey it to us either sooner or later, and if he doesn’t do that at all it’s BAD WRITING.~~

What is your point? That’s the basic framework of my argument. Thank you.

~~~”To quote a wise man, “IT’S A CARTOON!”. If it doesn’t make sense to you, turn off the show and watch something that does.”
See, you’re doing it again, except in a slightly different way. This time, you’re basically going “it’s a cartoon, who cares if it’s badly written”? Which is fine, but then don’t contradict yourself and claim it’s good. Also, nice little attempt to sneak “it doesn’t make sense to YOU” in there, as if it imply that we were just incapable of grasping how HxH makes perfect sense. Sorry, it doesn’t make sense, period.~~~

I feel like we are just going around in circles. You are saying it doesn’t make sense and is badly written and I think you’re wrong. You give examples and I give examples. At the end of the day, we don’t agree. But where’s the fun in agreeing to disagree?

~~~” After calling him out, Max through his own admission stated that he “WAS” the most powerful person and is currently at half his strength.”
Bullshit. You didn’t call me out on crap. I said he was twice as powerful in his prime and he is STILL the most powerful Nen-user.~~~

Based on what evidence? The fact that he’s the chairman? It could be argued that he is one of the most powerful Nen users in this universe, but we’ve yet to see the world outside of the scope of Gon and his associates. It’s like saying Vegeta is the most powerful villain in DBZ before we see Freiza.

~~~”The point of the entire conversation was to illustrate that other more powerful nen users were in this universe that could have easily taken care of the King.”
Again, bullshit. There was nothing in the series that indicates that, even now. You’re flat-out making shit up.~~~

??? That entire dialogue was based on a giant hypothetical. So what is your point?

~~~”I will state that morality can be subjective based on the user’s point of view. The United States is the perfect example. They enslaved an entire race of people, committed genocide, watched genocides happen on multiple occasions without lifting a finger and destroyed millions of lives through bombings and other acts of war, yet it can be argued that they’re not evil.”
…holy shit, you actually said that. I’m not gonna go into this, but here is one major reason why this is nonsense: It’s a false analogy. A country with a population of 313 million is not the same as a group of about a dozen people.~~~

Which makes my point all the more powerful. Just because you don’t want to address it, doesn’t make it a false analogy. Also, please read my words carefully. I’m not saying that it’s ok to be amoral. I’m simply stating that people will turn a blind eye to certain atrocities based on their point of view.

~~~”I would argue that when you’re dealing with a work of fiction, that’s all you can really do. Stick to the facts, which in this case, is the
story. You cannot compare what happens in Hunter x Hunter with what happens in the real world due to the nature of the story.”
You know what? Fine then. But if you’re going to argue that, you’d better apply this as a consistent standard, otherwise your entire argument just boils down to what’s called “special pleading” (look it up). And you know what that means when you actually use it on every work of fiction? It means that you invalidate your opinion on every fictional work because you have no way of determining if anything is better or worse. After all, as long as a story is fiction, anything goes. If I were to write a story in which the villain defeats the heroes at the end and then is struck by a bolt of lightning even though lightning didn’t exist in this world but suddenly just before the fight it came back, you couldn’t say that what I wrote was in any way bad or incorrect. If you’re prepared for the consequences, then by all means, take that ridiculous stance.~~~

I would agree with you if the series ended, but it continues and from what I’ve seen, all of the actions taken by the characters make sense. Part of problem is trying to defend something that doesn’t really need defending. If you would have said anything that actually had merit, I would agree with you. I was actually hoping you would say something that let me see the hole in the story, but all you’ve provided is a bunch of nit-picky criticisms that make this show sound like the worst thing ever written.

Max-Vader

“I countered that by doing my best to explain why their plan and actions made sense. If you disagree with my logic, then explain why that doesn’t make sense.”
I explained that three or four times now. I’m getting a bit tired of repeating myself.
“The plan wasn’t about the chairman beating the King in a head to head match, it was him destroying the King with the bomb. Why would the chairman fight Pitou when the clear objective was to destroy the head of the colony?”
Because if he killed the King before he was born, it would have led to less deaths, carried less risk and would have been a superior plan with less variables all around. For example, what if the King had delivered a killing blow that would have prevented him from setting off the bomb or otherwise intentionally or unintentionally damaged it in the fight? An awfully big risk to take for no reason at all.
“The innocent people that did die prompted the initial involvement of the Hunter’s Association, way before the King was born.”
Completely false. People continued to die. Hell, Knuckle and Shoot even had a heated argument about continuing to bide their time for the plan while people were slaughtered!
“What is your point? That’s the basic framework of my argument. Thank you.”
My point is the author has to supply an explanation for the events in the story. He didn’t, and continues to not do it. That is BAD WRITING. I shouldn’t have to wait YEARS in real-time to get an explanation of how the hell the Hunter Organisation could possibly work the way it does in any sane world, for example.
“It could be argued that he is one of the most powerful Nen users in this universe, but we’ve yet to see the world outside of the scope of Gon and his associates. It’s like saying Vegeta is the most powerful villain in DBZ before we see Freiza.”
I could just as easily flip this on you and say you have no reason to believe this either. Regardless, fact is he was portrayed as the most powerful Nen-user second to none (disregarding the Chimera Ant King and his Royal Guard, even though later on we find out he’s stronger than them anyway, which would mean he was underestimating his own power or something) and we still haven’t seen anyone on his level.
“Which makes my point all the more powerful. Just because you don’t want to address it, doesn’t make it a false analogy.”
“How in the world does that strengthen your point?! And YES, it IS a false analogy!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_analogy
You want me to address this nonsense? Fine, as long as you’re okay with looking bad. First off, as I stated, a country is not a person. By your logic, you could reasonably argue that all of Germany is evil because of Hitler. But you can’t. So there is no moral ambiguity here. And even if there was, it still doesn’t apply because you don’t even need to look at the phantom troupe as a whole, you can take a look at each member individually and they’re STILL horrible people! They are sadists, thieves, mass-murderers and have absolutely no regard for human life. And they’re hypocrites about it, to boot. So please explain to me how a person like Hisoka for instance is not evil. Morals are subjective, but not to such an extent. Just because there is grey doesn’t mean that black and white disappear into a haze of ambiguity.
“Part of problem is trying to defend something that doesn’t really need defending. If you would have said anything that actually had merit, I would agree with you. [..] all you’ve provided is a bunch of nit-picky criticisms”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! So the completely botched world-building, simplistic, unlikable and inhuman characters and the meandering, unfocused story riddled with plot convenience and Deus ex Machina are nitpicks, huh?

The Missing Piece

Okay, here are a few questions I would have in regard of HxH that make no sense:

When it comes to the Greed Island Arc, Max-Vader was pointing out how much of a waste of time and effort it is to put so many potential people and resources to use, just to train Gin’s son. Now Sean tries to make it sound legit by saying that Gin still did it because he had faith in his son or something like that. Still it begs the following question: If it was all just to test the son, why would he then allow so many copies to be created that good knows how many Hunters can try their own luck on it? What if some other Hunter would have completed the game long before him? Was there any secondary benefit for others to all that happened aside from good knows how many Hunters dying eventually in getting some card, meaning that Gin is indirectly responsible for orchestrating the deaths of countless people over the last decade? Furthermore, and that is the biggest logical flaw in that thing: WHAT IF GON HAD NEVER MADE IT HERE! What if Gon decided not to become a Hunter because he never cared abou wanting to find the dickhead who just left him as an infant? What if Gon had died during the Hunter exam, because unliek what Gin believed, his son had not the potential to be hunter material? What if he never got the game in the first place? The “plan” behind Greed Island depends on so many what if scenarios to play out exactly in a way no one could foresee, that the fact it plays out like it eventually boils down to “because the plot says so”. Sorry, but in my opinion, if a masterplan in fiction can fall apart because of so many very likely what if situations that can easily translate to something that can also happen in real life, you are IMO a bad writer.

I also like at the end the entire description of the Hunter organization and why Sean thinks it is good. Sean’s argument pretty much boils down to “lets appease those Nen users so they don’t turn on us and that they become our allies we can ask for help if there is a threat”. This pretty much boils down to being the booth licker to a noble tyrant if you think about it, painting the Hunter organization and anyone who joins it just as one thing: A group of egoistical jerkasses who is too lazy to do the bullying and only wants the benefit from it. And I am aware that the Hunter organization is shown as morally ambigious based on certain fractions that showed up during the course of the story, but if the recent leader was also a sadist and the current head of it is a slacker who runs away from his own son, I somehow doubt that the organization at least in the way how large it is to the point that under the wrong leadership it becomes its own micronation/army is a good thing at all. HEck, under those circumstances it would really be better to make the Nen users not members of a giant world wide union, because guess what: If they are unified, they are more dangerous than when they are just individual fractions spread all over the world with different agendas on their own. Cause in the later case scenario, those things would be more likely:
a) because they dont manage to find a common point of interest, they will probably kill each other more than innocent people, leading also to the building of clear fractions that can be treated as terrorists and therefore be dealt with, while other more noble fractions can be supported and become clear “heroes”.
b) The governments have more resources at their disposel and dont encourage people of becoming nen users for their own benefit as much as it is currentl the case.

Furthermore, the idea of the government giving their stuff in order to prevent to be attacked is fucking retarted. How does giving them stuff automatically prevent anything? You can also argue that this is worse, because it makes those nen users realize “what, I get stuff for free because they think I may become evil? Say, what if I become actual evil, wont I then get even more?”, resulting in their inherited greed to be nutured to the point they become villains for the benefit.

Compare that now for example with the seven samurais in One Piece. They are also “evil” pirates and they get immunity by the government, but here is the difference. the government/marine itself does its best to keep some of the strongest people in the world under their personal control by making them members of their military, in case that one of their “allies” goes postal, they can take care of it. They have inner organizations like CP9 and such and are willing to replace the samurais anytime with new candidates, keep an eye on them and exploit their own power struggles as good as possible to keep a certain amount of balance in the world so that no pirate becomes powerful enough to become a supreme threat to them. All fo that was pretty easily established in One Piece already in around 27 issues, wiuth multiple storylines. None of this si supposedly the case in HxH, where 32 volumes over the course of more than 14 years have been published.

HxH in regard of world building is just pulling stuff out of its ass as time goes by. This is getting rather obvious by the fact that the origin of the chimera ants is only now being revealed as characters making a handwaved argument that they may have come form the new world, something that was not even hinted at before.

~~~Okay, here are a few questions I would have in regard of HxH that make no sense: When it comes to the Greed Island Arc, Max-Vader was pointing out how much of a waste of time and effort it is to put so many potential people and resources to use, just to train Gin’s son. Now Sean tries to make it sound legit by saying that Gin still did it because he had faith in his son or something like that. Still it begs the following question: If it was all just to test the son, why would he then allow so many copies to be created that good knows how many Hunters can try their own luck on it?~~~

Beta Testing.

~~~What if some other Hunter would have completed the game long before him? Was there any secondary benefit for others to all that happened aside from good knows how many Hunters dying eventually in getting some card, meaning that Gin is indirectly responsible for orchestrating the deaths of countless people over the last decade? Furthermore, and that is the biggest logical flaw in that thing: WHAT IF GON HAD NEVER MADE IT HERE! What if Gon decided not to become a Hunter because he never cared abou wanting to find the dickhead who just left him as an infant? What if Gon had died during the Hunter exam, because unliek what Gin believed, his son had not the potential to be hunter material? What if he never got the game in the first place?~~~

Ging had faith in his son. That’s sort of a big thing in Shonen anime.

~~~The “plan” behind Greed Island depends on so many what if scenarios to play out exactly in a way no one could foresee, that the fact it plays out like it eventually boils down to “because the plot says so”. Sorry, but in my opinion, if a masterplan in fiction can fall apart because of so many very likely what if situations that can easily translate to something that can also happen in real life, you are IMO a bad writer.~~~

Most plans have unforeseen variables. With your logic, anything that can’t be done without 100% certainty, isn’t worth doing. Sometimes you have to go out on a limb and take a chance. That’s what makes fantasy fantastic.

~~~I also like at the end the entire description of the Hunter organization and why Sean thinks it is good. Sean’s argument pretty much boils down to “lets appease those Nen users so they don’t turn on us and that they become our allies we can ask for help if there is a threat”. This pretty much boils down to being the booth licker to a noble tyrant if you think about it, painting the Hunter organization and anyone who joins it just as one thing: A group of egoistical jerkasses who is too lazy to do the bullying and only wants the benefit from it. And I am aware that the Hunter organization is shown as morally ambigious based on certain fractions that showed up during the course of the story, but if the recent leader was also a sadist and the current head of it is a slacker who runs away from his own son, I somehow doubt that the organization at least in the way how large it is to the point that under the wrong leadership it becomes its own micronation/army is a good thing at all. HEck, under those circumstances it would really be better to make the Nen users not members of a giant world wide union, because guess what: If they are unified, they are more dangerous than when they are just individual fractions spread all over the world with different agendas on their own.~~~

A gun by itself isn’t dangerous. Put into the wrong hands, you have a deadly weapon. The gun of Nen users is a thing, it exists in this world. The point of the Hunter’s Association is to be the person controlling the gun. Being a nen user doesn’t make you a leader. Some of the most powerful people on the planet are only powerful because of the tools at their disposal. Also, Ging is not the head of the Hunter’s Association, nor was he ever the head of the association. Not sure where you read that.

~~~Cause in the later case scenario, those things would be more likely:
a) because they dont manage to find a common point of interest, they will probably kill each other more than innocent people, leading also to the building of clear fractions that can be treated as terrorists and therefore be dealt with, while other more noble fractions can be supported and become clear “heroes”.~~~

The Hunter’s Association is run democratically. In the story, it is designed to mirror what really happens in these types of systems. If Togashi could come up with a solution that works, he should quit manga and run for office. There is no perfect solution for government. We just pick the best option and try to make it work. The alternative is mayhem and anarchy. Also, just because they view nen users as monsters, doesn’t make it true. As we’ve seen in the show, even the most terrible users have their moments.

~~~b) The governments have more resources at their disposel and dont encourage people of becoming nen users for their own benefit as much as it is currentl the case.

Furthermore, the idea of the government giving their stuff in order to prevent to be attacked is fucking retarted. How does giving them stuff automatically prevent anything? You can also argue that this is worse, because it makes those nen users realize “what, I get stuff for free because they think I may become evil? Say, what if I become actual evil, wont I then get even more?”, resulting in their inherited greed to be nutured to the point they become villains for the benefit.~~~

Why do you think they started a Hunter’s Association? They basically are turning the Nen users against themselves. If one person gets the bright idea of bucking the system, there are a thousand more that will quickly keep them in check. Also it’s not a hand out. Only the nen users that really want to adopt this system of governance get this opportunity. That’s why they have all of these crazy rules you have to follow in order to remain a Hunter. It’s no different than a person working 11 hours a day to make what the CEO earns in a minute. You would think that there would be rioting in the streets this very minute.

~~Compare that now for example with the seven samurais in One Piece. They are also “evil” pirates and they get immunity by the government, but here is the difference. the government/marine itself does its best to keep some of the strongest people in the world under their personal control by making them members of their military, in case that one of their “allies” goes postal, they can take care of it. They have inner organizations like CP9 and such and are willing to replace the samurais anytime with new candidates, keep an eye on them and exploit their own power struggles as good as possible to keep a certain amount of balance in the world so that no pirate becomes powerful enough to become a supreme threat to them. All fo that was pretty easily established in One Piece already in around 27 issues, wiuth multiple storylines. None of this si supposedly the case in HxH, where 32 volumes over the course of more than 14 years have been published.~~~

It is a guild of HUNTERS. They essentially police themselves and are already controlled by the government. Why would they need to make them allies?

~~~HxH in regard of world building is just pulling stuff out of its ass as time goes by. This is getting rather obvious by the fact that the origin of the chimera ants is only now being revealed as characters making a handwaved argument that they may have come form the new world, something that was not even hinted at before.~~~

I’m sure it feels that way because the facts are being presented in real time.

The Missing Piece

-Beta Testing.

So the lives of thousands over the years have been wasted for the sake of beta testing. You know, as an alternative he could have also just send his son to one remote island with monsters and make him and a friend deal with everything on their own. You know, survival of the fittest or so.

– Most plans have unforeseen variables. With your logic, anything that
can’t be done without 100% certainty, isn’t worth doing. Sometimes you have to go out on a limb and take a chance. That’s what makes fantasy fantastic.

When I say the plan makes no sense because of too many variables in it, I meant that as followed: Yes, many plans cant be performed with a 100% certainty. And I get that in real life and fiction you also have to take chances and risks. But if your “plan” relies on too many variables it is no plan, it is a fucking gambit. There are enough villainous plans in fiction where the bad guy could not foresee all he wanted, but he could at least assume that things develop in certain directions he could use for. Joker for example knows Batman and his allies well enough to manipulate them time and time again in ways to get his giggles out of it. But what does Gon’s dad really know about his son? How would he be able to predict he becomes that kid with a talent for being a hunter, if he never spend time with him or got information by someone how he is developing? You could argue that he got exactly that or that he performed some sort of nen potential test on him after birth, but stuff like that was never explicitly shown or hinted at, making it at best a theory. In that regard, I could make also the theory that Ging is actually Gon who time travels in the future in his own past and becomes his dad or shit like that, because it is also possible. The only way to know what really is or not, is if the author comes and establishes it. And that is the thing: The author doesnt. At all That makes him a bad writer in my opinion.

And I dont care if Ging had faith in his son or not. All those “believers” who think their infant son may one day become a world savior are retarted from every logical standpoint anyway, because the only reason why their faith akes sense is because we as the readers naturally know that yes, they will be heroes. Too bad that in universe it makes no sense from a narrative standpoint.

And speaking of the talent of the author: Why should I think the guy has talent if he is someone who not only threw pretty much two of four main characters out rather soon in the manga and suffered multiple cases of writers block over the years. Not just that, if you read the manga, he breaks the rule of “show dont tell” on multiple occasions especially near the end of the chimera ant king arc, when most of the narrative happens in the text boxes.

So the lives of thousands over the years have been wasted for the sake of beta testing. You know, as an alternative he could have also just send his son to one remote island with monsters and make him and a friend deal with everything on their own. You know, survival of the fittest or so.~~~

I’m sure that could have been an option. But then HxH would be accused of ripping off DBZ and FMA.

~~~- Most plans have unforeseen variables. With your logic, anything that can’t be done without 100% certainty, isn’t worth doing. Sometimes you have to go out on a limb and take a chance. That’s what makes fantasy fantastic.

When I say the plan makes no sense because of too many variables in it, I meant that as followed: Yes, many plans cant be performed with a 100% certainty. And I get that in real life and fiction you also have to take chances and risks. But if your “plan” relies on too many variables it is no plan, it is a fucking gambit. There are enough villainous plans in fiction where the bad guy could not foresee all he wanted, but he could at least assume that things develop in certain directions he could use for. Joker for example knows Batman and his allies well enough to manipulate them time and time again in ways to get his giggles out of it. But what does Gon’s dad really know about his son? How would he be able to predict he becomes that kid with a talent for being a hunter, if he never spend time with him or got information by someone how he is developing? You could argue that he got exactly that or that he performed some sort of nen potential test on him after birth, but stuff like that was never explicitly shown or hinted at, making it at best a theory. In that regard, I could make also the theory that Ging is actually Gon who time travels in the future in his own past and becomes his dad or shit like that, because it is also possible. The only way to know what really is or not, is if the author comes and establishes it. And that is the thing: The author doesnt. At all That makes him a bad writer in my opinion.~~~

The story is ongoing. We are just being formally introduced to Ging. If the series ends and those things aren’t explain, I will give you that point. Plus, a lot of those elements have been hinted at in recent chapters.

~~~And I dont care if Ging had faith in his son or not. All those “believers” who think their infant son may one day become a world savior are retarted from every logical standpoint anyway, because the only reason why their faith akes sense is because we as the readers naturally know that yes, they will be heroes. Too bad that in universe it makes no sense from a narrative standpoint.~~~

I’m sorry that you don’t care if Ging had faith in his son. I’m not sure where to go with this…

~~~And speaking of the talent of the author: Why should I think the guy has talent if he is someone who not only threw pretty much two of four main characters out rather soon in the manga and suffered multiple cases of writers block over the years. Not just that, if you read the manga, he breaks the rule of “show dont tell” on multiple occasions especially near the end of the chimera ant king arc, when most of the narrative happens in the text boxes.~~~

So let’s deduct points from Togashi for that, but it doesn’t make him a horrible author. Although I wouldn’t take points away from him from what you just described.

Max-Vader

“I’m sure that could have been an option. But then HxH would be accused of ripping off DBZ and FMA.”
Honestly, if HxH had ripped DBZ off even more than it alredy did, it would actually be better.

The Missing Piece

-I’m sorry that you don’t care if Ging had faith in his son. I’m not sure where to go with this…

It is not just Ging, it is the entire fucking enterage of stupid anime parents and heroes walking around, with the dad of NAruto being on top. Sorry, I admire it when characters have faith in someone else when there is a dire situation at hand, but it also has to make sense for me. The Strawhats have faith in Luffy, because they have seen multiple times that he is a determinator who will fight through hell itself with the biggest grin on his face if he has to in order to protect those he cares about. Their faith is based on actual experience and when they see that a situation is indeed too dire, they will tell their friend to screw it. But idiots like Naruto’s dad… let me put it up like that: Why the heck should I believe in my dying moments that my recently born infant son could one day become the savior of the entire world, if I dont know what potential he has or what he may face in the future? The answer, you logically cant. But that is something the author does not care about, because he just wants to write out cliches without realizing the following: In any fictional work, an author has to make things make sense on two levels: The level of the reader and the level of the own universe. If the universe has a well established set of rules ater which characters act on, they have to continue to act on it and new things cant just be pulled out of the ass. Secondly, the actions of the characters must make a certain amount of sense to the reader, who expects at least a basic level of common sense from the characters, although always adjusted to the events unfolding in the story. For eample: If a character has a choice between going an easy path to a certain destination or a hard path, why would he want to chose the hard one over the other? A certain explanation must be given, either by something related to the characters personality or that taking the easy path would also be linked to certain consequences that are at least established immediately towards the reader.

But I digress. I would rather want to ask another thing in regard of the villains of that thing so far: Why should any of the villains really be considered a character who also has a good side to it? I read up on something Max said a few comments below about the Phantom Group that they are just sociopaths and mass murderers and he is right. It does not matter if they interact with each other like family, they obviously get some sort of kick out of just killing others for really no reason aside of “it is fun for their whole group”. I mean yeah, I like to have fun with my friends too, but I am not exterminating an entire race like they did with Kurapika’s tribe just for that. And if that is their understanding of fun, why is that so? Aside of them supposedly coming from that shit hole that was never properly established as a location in universe by characters interacting there, why else are they so sociopathic? And again, just because they interact friendly with each other doesn`t make them automatically more relatable. It just shows that they are not as cartoonishly evil like Power Rangers or Carebear bad guys who all the time they are onscreen are only laughing like idiots and do evil for the fun. But aside of them supposedly having hobbies, they ARE like those villains. Because just like those bad guys, all they do is, they do it for the “Evulz” as tvtropes would call it. That is not a complex villain like lets say Gus from Breaking Bad, who has motivations for wating to rise up in the ranks of the mexican drug cartel in order to also take revenge on those who killed his old partner. And even if we say they are more complex, they have no redeemable qualities. What, the few moments they are nice to each other and dont kill you immediately, letting you live? Let me quote something from another work of fiction in regard of that trope, tvtropes likes to refer to as “pet the dog”:

Blon: I spared her life.
Doctor: You let one of them go, but that’s nothing new. Every now and then, a little victim’s spared… because she smiled, cos he’s got freckles, cos they begged. And that’s how you live with yourself, that’s how you slaughter millions, because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind’s in
the right direction, you happen to be kind.

That doesnt give them depth, it just shows they are selectively “good”. You want actual character development? Let the Chimera Ant King realize that eating the population of an entire nation is fucked up in itself and that his little idea of Eugenics is more retarted then what the nazis believed in, instead of only sparing one little blind girl, because she is a “fascinating” curiosity for being able to actually beat him in a game of Go. If we compare that shit with real life events similiar to how you did in another comment (seriously, you compared the ambigious morality of America having to join in stuff like WWII and so on with the decision a bunch of powerhouses had to make who could have just DROPPED the bomb?), we could also argue that Hitler may have been less worse than the Chimera Ant King for the fact he actually helped the jewish doctor who treated his dying mother escape Europe. And now I just pissed on the graves of over 80 million death people.

But you know, I will say one thing about HxH, just so you better understand where I come from with the thing: I started reading the manga when it first came out where I live in 2002/03 as part of my countries Shonen Jump. And I thought it was interesting, because it did not quite read like the typical shonen. And I think that this is actually one thing that can be said aout HxH. It is not your average shonen manga, because it does not really try to give too mcuh depth certain characters, focus on epically escalating conflicts and so on. The manga has a weird “real life” feeling to it, as that similiar to real life things can be resolved in unsatisfying not necessarily epic ways and that things can be rather mundane from a certain point of view. Example: The way of how the Chimera Ant King dies of radiation poisoning rather than instead of the actual battle is something I can get behind. Also that the main heroes are not necessarily playing THE major role in the defeat of a common threat, because compared to other powerhouses they are small flies. But seriously, Gon and Killuah are just dull. I continued to read sporadically up on HxH after the Greed Island Arc and therefore know what happens majorily and how the characters behave and such. Heck, when the king was born, I bought the volume cause I heard he is supposedly awesome. First thing I thought when I saw him was “guy looks like the lovechild of Freeza and Cell”. I still followed chap for chap, but the more I read the more I realized how bad the manga is. As I mentioned before, the narrative flow suddenly got condensed more in text boxes than actual panel action (gon vs Tranny cat eg.), which I have seen last time in Frank Millers worst work, the art style got even more sporadic (and lets face it, the latest chapters look like something that makes Megatokyo look like the Mona Lisa) and transissions between arcs are so hazily writen I get the feeling I am reading Ranma 1/2.

The author is not “horrible”, as in his stuff is so bad it is offensive to me or so, but the writing overall is just not good. If Naruto is a shonen manga that contains the most childish “positive” cliches of his genre, then HxH is on the other end of the spectrum where things are rather dull for the most part.

Cody Baier

“In any fictional work, an author has to make things make sense on two levels: The level of the reader and the level of the own universe.”

Sage words right there.

hachikurooo

“WHAT IF GON HAD NEVER MADE IT HERE! What if Gon decided not to become a Hunter because he never cared abou wanting to find the dickhead who just left him as an infant?”

Then he and Ging would never meet and Ging wouldn’t care because if his son couldn’t be bothered looking for him then woopedoo. Ging is a bad dad and has never had the desire to fulfill that role. Gon is just another part of things to keep him occupied. His ‘faith’ in Gon is placed in the notion that they’re the same. They’re Hunters looking for their target. It’s just so happens Gon made Ging his goal.

Max-Vader

Oh, I almost forgot: Here is the video I made that I was talking about. Enjoy.

Thank you for that highlight reel. It was indeed awesome. If that was your point.

Max-Vader

You could indeed call this a highlight-reel, but not in the way you think.
“MORE QUICK, ONE-SIDED BATTLES ENDING WITH A SINGLE ATTACK THAN ONE PUNCH-MAN, IT’S HUNTER X HUNTER! HARDCORE ROCK PAPER SCISSORS! EXTEME CANDLE-BURNING ACTION! SCENES SO GAY THAT THEY MAKE GAYRACULA LOOK STRAIGHT! TRANNY CATGIRLS! YEAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

Cody Baier

You consider that a highlight reel? Because it pretty well demonstrates Max’s point of fights in HxH being one-sided non-fights. Among other issues…

Not gonna lie, I laughed a few times at scenes I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to laugh at. The FUCK was going on with that last scene?!

The Missing Piece

It is equally gay in the fucking manga. Supposedly they are considering it an honor to give their blood to him as if he was Dracula and they are his vampire bitches. I am not even sure why the thing exists in the first place. If it is supposed to be taken serious it fails and if it is supposed to be intentionally funny, it just goes too far to the point it becomes annoying and embarassing to watch. It is like a really, really bad Family Guy gag. One on the same level as Conway Twitty

Cody Baier

It looked like Togashi read the Dio and Pucci flashback scene in JoJo, looked up dramatically from the manga and said “I can do gayer.”

Devin Wolfe

­
­

The Missing Piece

Is that all you can contribute? not even able to give a decent argument as for what is going on here or why the show is good/bad/mediocre?

Mikel Crawford

It’s a comment on the podcast itself, which is fitting none of the less.

You want someone on the internet to contribute more than a meme? The internet’s throne is partially made of memes.

Devin Wolfe

“Is that all you can contribute? not even able to give a decent argument as for what is going on here or why the show is good/bad/mediocre?”

Since I haven’t watched the show nor read the manga I don’t have a dog in this fight.

Lerkero

When Hunter x Hunter first started I thought it was an interesting series offering something different from they typical shonen and would ultimately be a breath of fresh air from overpowered heroes battling opponents who, despite being much stronger than the heroes, still end up being implausibly defeated. I came for a show that would depict strategic battles but eventually all I got was power levels.

HxH can be summarized in one sentence: “Hunters are incompetent and Ging is a terrible father.”

My favorite moment is when Gon has his hands blown off and just brushes it off like it was nothing. A whole arc waiting for character development and that’s what we get. I’ll pass.

I grew up in Germany for a few years at an early age, and I just remember watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, playing outside in cloudy weather, and the amazing chocolate eggs with toys inside them. Btw Crunchyroll became available in Germany since April, so very recently which is cool.

Onto HxH (btw I’m a big fan of this series) and my own thoughts on Max’s points:

GON IS A PRICK:
I don’t like Gon. During the hunter exam when he let Hisoka murder somebody just so he could use that opportunity to swipe his badge away was when I realized that something was off about this kid, not to mention how thrilled he was when Killua gouged out a man’s heart. And yeah, I was pissed at him for trying so hard to be the main character during his fight with the Bomber, instead of listening to Biscuit from the beginning (awesome fight, but yeah Gon was a selfish prick). I don’t like him as a person, but I do appreciate his type of character. He has his own twisted form of morals and I seriously believe that he has a protagonist-complex and tries to act like the main hero, but starts to crack when things aren’t going the way he thinks a shonen series should go.

WTF IS UP WITH GREED ISLAND:
The Greed Island arc (before the final fights) reminded me of the wacky adventures of Dragon Ball. The reason Gon went to GI was because his dad left behind that ring and data cartridge, and knowing Gon, anything that relates to his dad took priority over whatever. How Ging knew that Gon would go along with this and survive can be explained with the cliche term “Like father like son.” Either Ging is a complete utter freakin genius, or that’s just complete BS (I find it funny either way). We don’t get a full back story on everyone that decided to help Ging build GI, but we do know that Razor had the choice of either staying in prison or beating the crap out of people on this Island. Whether or not Ging’s other “friends” were in a similar situation is up in the air. If you think it’s stupid that Ging somehow just knew that Gon was going to get through all that, then I can understand that. That was a gripe I had with the revelation of GI’s existence, but my gripe with that did not ruin the entire arc for me, but hey that’s where our view of the arc differs. Concerning the amount of nen needed to produce the system of GI, it’s very possible that the game masters had to set conditions on themselves in order to produce just what they needed for GI to exist. Conditions are basically another word for making a character broken, but at a cost (like Kurapika against the Spiders, and Gon against Pitou). These are things that obviously would’ve been nice to have said outright when given exposition about GI’s development, but at least those possibilities fit within the laws of the HxH world.

NGL AND THE ANTS:
When Kite and his circus gang of researchers found out that the royal guard and the King were soon to be born, Kite made it a priority to kill the Queen before that happened, but they were too late, and then Pitou happened. It was mentioned that NGL was an isolated country with no way to communicate with the outside world (technology in NGL was forbidden), and Kite didn’t want to waste time getting out of NGL when he could just kill the Queen while she was still vulnerable. Kite did not expect the royal guard to be that much of a threat.

ROSE OF DEATH:
After the King took over Diego’s palace, there were two major reasons Netero went out to fight the King. 1) He wanted to deal with it himself and keep the situation as low key as possible and 2) the higher-ups wanted Netero to be put in a position where they could blame him for any casualties during the mission, and dirty his political appearance (because there was an election coming up soon).
The reason the rose-nukes weren’t just volleyed into the country was kinda the same reason we today don’t just nuke a country. Those bombs were globally banned, so getting any authorization to use even one was probably a factor into what took so long to even have that kind of plan be an option. The rest of the world didn’t know what was going on, so using nukes for any reason would result in huge backlash from nearby countries. That’s why Netero led the King to an underground area in the middle of no where, also to give everyone from his group the time to evacuate from the radiation that would eventually be carried over toward the palace.

I haven’t gotten to the election arc, so that’s my input.

Max-Vader

“I seriously believe that he has a protagonist-complex and tries to act
like the main hero, but starts to crack when things aren’t going the way
he thinks a shonen series should go.”
People tell me Hunter x Hunter is different from standard shonen-stuff, but I haven’t seen anything in the series to indicate that.
“Concerning the amount of nen needed to produce the system of GI, it’s
very possible that the game masters had to set conditions on themselves
in order to produce just what they needed for GI to exist.”
So what you’re telling me is that ten incredibly powerful people basically crippled their own abilities and confined themselves for what might be decades on an island all for the sake of a guy who may or may not show up and who is the son of a complete asshole who can’t even be bothered to remember their names and gives them new ones so he won’t have to bother learning them. Are you kidding me?
“Also, another reason Netero and his group didn’t just swoop into the
nest before the King was born was because it was impossible not to be
noticed by Pitou’s En if they got close enough.”
This doesn’t invalidate any of my points. The plans I proposed could still have been carried out. Hell, here’s a third one: Have the chairman lure that thing away and/or fight it while the other two go in and kill everyone. Bam, done.
“The reason the rose-nukes weren’t just volleyed into the country was kinda the same reason we today don’t just nuke a country.”
You just needed one. And if you couldn’t have used them (conveniently though, they can suddenly be used after the King was born, despite the supposed objections you brought up still existing), they could have just used conventional explosives via the blimp/plane-plan I mentioned. Either way, all the ants die, no casualties.

Wakashi

“People tell me Hunter x Hunter is different from standard shonen-stuff, but I haven’t seen anything in the series to indicate that.”

Are you sure you watched HxH? I understand that the first arc feels very similar to other shonen series, but by the York Shin arc, that’s when it felt different, to me anyway. The Ant arc (especially how it ends) is probably the most blatant example of how it’s not your typical shonen. If anyone could give multiple (because just 2 of the same thing does not make something standard) examples of other series that prove me wrong on that, that’d be nice.

Concerning Greed Island, it was meant to be a game for hunters, and it sold out instantly. Yeah Ging’s real intention for GI is screwed up, but how often do people make things with multiple intentions? He did make a lot of money off of it, which is something even rich people still want to do despite not needing to. Overall, I’m not saying that the premise of GI isn’t ridiculous, but it didn’t ruin everything that happened in that arc for me. If it did for you, oh well. I simply had too much fun during the majority of that arc to let that revelation at the end disappoint me enough to dislike the arc.

“This doesn’t invalidate any of my points. The plans I proposed could still have been carried out.”

You’re right. With all the plans that could’ve been done with the ants, it’s a lot easier to see those other options in hindsight. People make dumb decisions all the time, just look at how the US has been dealing with the Middle East.

Overall, I see most of your arguments as valid points and easy to acknowledge (especially with hating Gon), but they’re nitpicky and they don’t discredit HxH altogether, that’s my opinion. Honestly, I appreciate that you at least had reasons and explained them. One of my friends stopped watching Attack on Titan and said that it was boring, then headed over to wiki to read the spoilers, lol. If you did that, this podcast would’ve been boring.

Btw, I’m curious, what’s your opinion on Yu Yu Hakusho and Level E?

Max-Vader

“Are you sure you watched HxH?”
Are you sure you did?
“People make dumb decisions all the time, just look at how the US has been dealing with the Middle East.”
What is it with Hunter x Hunter-fans and ridiculous political comparisons?
“but they’re nitpicky and they don’t discredit HxH altogether”
So to once again repeat my question since nobody has answered it yet: The awful pace, shallow unlikable characters, plothole-ridden story and catastrophic worldbuilding are “nitpicks”? In what dimension is a complaint like “The existence and structure of the organisation whose members your story revolves around makes absolutely no sense” a triviality? Or maybe the fact that we’re supposed to like an unrepentant serial killer who stabbed his mother in the face and see him as a heroic character? Or the fact that the entire existence of Greed Island was pointless?
“what’s your opinion on Yu Yu Hakusho and Level E?”
I have none since I don’t know anything about them.

Cody Baier

“The awful pace, shallow unlikable characters, plothole-ridden story and catastrophic worldbuilding are “nitpicks”? In what dimension is a complaint like “The existence and structure of the organisation whose members your story revolves around makes absolutely no sense” a triviality? Or maybe the fact that we’re supposed to like an unrepentant serial killer who stabbed his mother in the face and see him as a heroic character?”

This is why I’m friends with you. Your brain is full of smart things and right answers.

This is exactly what I was talking about from the previous A3K episode before I even heard this episode. People are either going to view the faults in HxH as a huge deal that ruins the entire series, or those faults will seem small in comparison to what the show does right. For some reason you get your facts and opinions mixed together. The negative aspects you pointed out about the series do exist, yes. How you feel about those faults is your opinion. My opinion is that the faults aren’t bad enough to ruin the whole show.

I get the feeling you wouldn’t like Big O after seeing the finale, because it throws all the struggle and symbolism out the window and ends in a total WTF.

“What is it with Hunter x Hunter-fans and ridiculous political comparisons?”

Again, you watched this?

hachikurooo

“So what you’re telling me is that ten incredibly powerful people basically crippled their own abilities and confined themselves for what might be decades on an island all for the sake of a guy who may or may not show up and who is the son of a complete asshole who can’t even be bothered to remember their names and gives them new ones so he won’t have to bother learning them. Are you kidding me?”

Pretty sure they just made Greed Island for the hell of it. G.I couldn’t have been made for Gon’s sake because then they would’ve just abolished it by the time Gon completed it. It’s more of a passion project for everyone involved.

My memories are a bit rusty but from what I remember the reason why “they could have just used conventional explosives via the blimp/plane-plan I mentioned.” won’t work is simply because that’s
assuming it’s okay to bomb NGL without fully recognizing the gravity of the situation. Also note that NGL had lots of weaponry and explosives and were still unable to defend themselves. Some ants can fly too. Using conventional weapons and bombs wouldn’t have a 100% success rate and will probably trigger most ants to leave the nest and propagate elsewhere.

There’s also the time issue. By the time Kite had reached their nest, the one of the guards had already been born and ants were on the verge of learning nen. By the time Netero, Morau and Novu came in, they didn’t even have any idea how many ants they were dealing with and when the King was going to be born. The idea was to complete the mission as covertly as possible but it exploded into a huge thing before they could even gather the necessary information. “Bomb now, ask questions later” was hardly a viable option then because they couldn’t even provide the info needed to approve of such an operation.

Max-Vader

“Pretty sure they just made Greed Island for the hell of it.”
That just makes it even dumber.
“It’s more of a passion project for everyone involved.”
You mean like the guy from death row?
“that’s assuming it’s okay to bomb NGL without fully recognizing the gravity of the situation.”

But it’s okay to do it when you really really wanna fight the Chimera Ant King? Besides, they already knew what a massive threat he was. And on top of that, the hive was in the middle of nowhere in a country of goddamn luddites. You could firebomb entire forests and these dense motherfuckers wouldn’t notice. Just look at how they reacted the the Chimera Ants – or rather, didn’t react because news doesn’t travel there. And even if it did, just blame the Ants. What’s worse, setting off a bomb in the middle of nowhere or risking the future of humanity?
“Using conventional weapons and bombs wouldn’t have a 100% success rate “and will probably trigger most ants to leave the nest and propagate elsewhere.”
Unlike the plan they went with, which… OH RIGHT. Also, just use the not-Atom Bomb, then if regular explosives are supposedly ineffective. Also, blowing up the hive would kill the ants in it, you do realize that, don’t you?
“they couldn’t even provide the info needed to approve of such an operation.”
Actually, this is another problem. We never see the chairman or his guys report back to HQ or ask them for orders. That’s probably because he’s been put in charge of the problem, but if that is the case, then your requirement for “approval” disappears.

Wakashi

I couldn’t help but think about this: If plausibility is what makes something good, then does that mean that JoJo sucks?

– Control the power of the sun by breathing differently.

– Dio managing to use Jonathan’s body, despite it blowing up inside the ship.

– Joseph jumping off a cliff and coming back instantly with a german carrier.

– How did a hot air balloon catch up to that speeding carrier before it crashed?

– Joseph’s severed arm grabbing Cars.

– The eruption from the volcano was somehow strong enough to blast Cars into space.

– Where did Joseph get all those grenades when he fought Straizo?

– A gorilla having a stand, especially one of that scale.

– If Dio was smart, he would’ve had all of his stand users attack Jojo and company at the same time.

Those are just a few things in JoJo that made me go “WTF”.
But you what, I can let it slide because JoJo is stupid awesome, and so is HxH.
If you’re going to let half of the ridiculousness in JoJo slide, then you can’t really complain about HxH having ridiculous moments which are not even that crazy in comparison most of the time.

Cody Baier

Haha, oh my god you’re serious…

– Control the power of the sun by breathing differently.
— There’s a difference between a magical martial art and leaps in logic in regards to decision making and problem solving.

– Dio managing to use Jonathan’s body, despite it blowing up inside the ship.
— Jonathan’s body was never shown to have exploded before Dio took it.

– Joseph jumping off a cliff and coming back instantly with a german carrier.
— Again, there is a difference between “crazy action scene” and “the plot cannot advance unless the characters are idiots.”

– How did a hot air balloon catch up to that speeding carrier before it crashed?
— See above.

– The eruption from the volcano was somehow strong enough to blast Cars into space.
— At this point I’m starting to question your basic comprehension skills. See above again. Also you’re bitching about physics in a series established to contain magic martial arts and Pillar Men.

– Where did Joseph get all those grenades when he fought Straizo?
— Again, this does not equate to a plothole, or characters with poor motivation, or poor worldbuilding, or plot points which make no logical sense but are treated as good ideas or logical conclusions anyway.

– Where did Joseph get all those grenades when he fought Straizo?
— See above for the umpteenth time.

– A gorilla having a stand, especially one of that scale.
— Animals can have stands. Several animals throughout the series have Stands, or are given Stands. How is this hard to grasp?

– Why didn’t Dio just have all of his stand users attack Jotaro and company at the same time?

— Essentially he did. They’re either following Jotaro and co., or they’re intercepting them. They’re not acting as one cohesive unit for the obvious reason that has been stated time and time again (these Stand users being assassins, and revealing the details of their Stand powers would give away their weaknesses).

Learn to use your brain.

Wakashi

So basically you’re saying the show is already stupid, so it can do whatever and get away with it.

Cody Baier

And now you’re just trolling. G’night, kid.

Wakashi

No, that’s basically what I got from your argument. It’s like when a retarded kid does something stupid vs someone who knows better does something stupid. The retarded kid has a better chance of being excused for it.

Cody Baier

So your comprehension skills ARE rock bottom, then! Good to know for the future, saves me a lot of time. G’night, kid!

Wakashi

So whenever you can’t back up anything, you result to insults. Oh the internet.

Hasn’t Cody been insulting you so much that you wouldn’t bother arguing with him anymore?

Kerberous

This is Wakashi we’re talking about here. You have to throw logic out the window, and take very little he says seriously.

“If everything were to use logic 100% of the time, there wouldn’t be any
fun in many stories. Case in point, Lord of the Rings (if you’ve
read/seen it, you know what I’m talking about)”

hahahahahahahahaha

Wakashi

If the fellowship did the logical thing, they could’ve rode on the eagles all the way to Mordor. But if that happened, we wouldn’t get an amazing story.

So instead of typing “hhaahah” like every other troll on the internet, prove why my point is invalid.

Cody Baier

I was gonna jump in, but why deprive Max of the ability to tear you a new literary asshole like I know he’s ever-so good at?

This is gonna be good.

Kerberous

“If the fellowship did the logical thing, they could’ve rode on the eagles all the way to Mordor. But if that happened, we wouldn’t get an amazing story.

So instead of typing “hhaahah” like every other troll on the internet, prove why my point is invalid.”

If you actually used your brain instead of claiming they don’t make sense to prove how big your e-dick is, you would know why that did, in fact, make sense. Trying to say that HxH (or w/e) should be enjoyed because something else that’s popular makes less sense is a stupid thing to say, anyway.

And I wonder why people don’t try to take you seriously or waste their time on you… It can’t possibly be because you instantly label someone as a butthurt troll when things don’t go your way.

Wakashi

“If you actually used your brain instead of claiming they don’t make sense to prove how big your e-dick is, you would know why that did, in fact, make sense.”

First of all, what does making a simple point have to do with an e-penis? I think you just wanted to use that term, on top of not explaining anything to disprove my point. Sorry, childish insults don’t count as proving me wrong.

“Trying to say that HxH (or w/e) should be enjoyed because something else that’s popular makes less sense is a stupid thing to say, anyway.”

Don’t put words in my mouth. One of the main arguments I kept hearing was that the characters don’t use logic, therefore it’s apparently terrible writing. I used Lord of the Rings as an example to prove why not using logic all the time can lead a story in a more interesting direction.

It’s hard not to call somebody out for trolling when they don’t explain anything and think that just insulting someone is somehow proving that person wrong, like you just did.

Kerberous

“First of all, what does making a simple point have to do with an e-penis? I think you just wanted to use that term, on top of not explaining anything to disprove my point. Sorry, childish insults don’t count as proving me wrong.”

Your points are so wrong that laughing at you is the best I can do. It’s pointless to try to reason with you, anyway. I’d have more luck convincing a harem protagonist that sex wasn’t invented by the devil.

“Don’t put words in my mouth. One of the main arguments I kept hearing was that the characters don’t use logic, therefore it’s apparently terrible writing. I used Lord of the Rings as an example to prove why not using logic all the time can lead a story in a more interesting direction.

It’s hard not to call somebody out for trolling when they don’t explain anything and think that just insulting someone is somehow proving that person wrong, like you just did.”

Cool story br0.

You don’t even know what I said.

Wakashi

“Your points are so wrong that laughing at you is the best I can do.”

Thanks for just proving my last comment to you, again:
“It’s hard not to call somebody out for trolling when they don’t explain anything and think that just insulting someone is somehow proving that person wrong, like you just did.”

When I said “I was talking to Kerberous.” I didn’t say that to say that it’s no one else’s business like you apparently thought; all I did was confirm that I was telling Kerberous that I was done with him and that I wasn’t saying that to TOS.

Read my comment, and understand the context by reading the previous comments before making an irrelevant response.

So you were. I assumed that you were talking to Cody or Max, because you tend to get into overlong arguments with them, every episode. My deepest apologies.

Wakashi

“because you tend to get into overlong arguments with them, every episode.”

If you actually go check (why would you), I haven’t argued with them in every episode they’ve been in, or even left a comment in some of them. I only listen and comment on the episodes that interest me, like any other person.

“I assumed that you were talking to Cody or Max.”

You need to learn how to not falsely assume then, including the above quote :/

It just makes you look like a dick that just jumped in just to say something without knowing what’s going on. I’m not saying that for myself, that’s just my advice to you for the future.

No they couldn’t.
A: The Nazgul would have easily intercepted them.
B: The Eagles can’t fly for very long distances, especially not with weight.
C: Even without the Nazgul, Sauron would have seen them coming miles away. do you honestly believe he couldn’t have made Frodo either drop the ring, put it on and force him to throw himself off or just prevented him from destroying it/entering Mount Doom? And he could have summoned some of his armies, to boot. This is of course assuming they get over the mountains without being shot down.
D: The eagles are servants of the Valar Manwe (who is sort of the King of the Gods) who refuses do directly interfere in the affairs of man. They offer no help in destroying the ring and wouldn’t take it either.
E: You’re an idiot.

Wakashi

First of all, thank you Max for being mature about this. If I’m going to be insulted or made a fool, at least it’s with reasonable explanations. Now onto my response:

“A: The Nazgul would have easily intercepted them.”

Yeah they would’ve been an obstacle, but going through endless armies of orcs, a balrog, a giant spider’s nest, and still getting attacked by the nazgul doesn’t sound easier to me. Plus, the eagles took down the nazgul without much trouble in the end (which also kinda contradicts your point-D explanation).

“B: The Eagles can’t fly for very long distances, especially not with weight.”

The eagles wouldn’t have to bring everyone, just Frodo and I guess Gandalf (I’m assuming they only ever help when Gandalf is involved, based on what I remember). Is there any proof to that statement about how far they could fly, because I don’t know myself.
If weight was a problem, they could just take turns carrying and “share the load”.

“C: Even without the Nazgul, Sauron would have seen them coming miles away. do you honestly believe he couldn’t have made Frodo either drop the ring, put it on and force him to throw himself off or just prevented him from destroying it/entering Mount Doom? And he could have summoned some of his armies, to boot. This is of course assuming they get over the mountains without being shot down.”

It took a long time (in the book at least) before Frodo was getting crazy over the ring. Speaking of “time”, if Frodo would’ve got off his fat a#$ and went to Mordor right away instead of waiting a decade or so to decide to set out on the journey, Sauron wouldn’t even be prepared enough at the time to do anything. So my initial argument over the eagles doesn’t even matter, lol.

“D: The eagles are servants of the Valar Manwe (who is sort of the King of the Gods) who refuses do directly interfere in the affairs of man. They offer no help in destroying the ring and wouldn’t take it either.”

I think I heard something about that in one of the commentaries. Yeah, they’re dicks, lol.

“E: You’re an idiot.”

But not this day….

Max-Vader

“Yeah they would’ve been an obstacle, but going through endless armies of orcs, a balrog, a giant spider’s nest, and still getting attacked by the nazgul doesn’t sound easier to me.”
Difficult beats impossible. I’m sure even you can grasp this.
“Is there any proof to that statement about how far they could fly, because I don’t know myself.”
The King of the Eagles himself said that they can’t carry things for long, which is why he brought Gandalf from Isengard to Rohan but no further.
“Plus, the eagles took down the nazgul without much trouble in the end”
That was in the movies. And besides, Sauron was already destroyed at that point, so the Nazgul lost all their power (and the whole non-interference thing was technically void at that point because Sauron is gone).
“(which also kinda contradicts your point-D explanation).”
See above.
“But not this day….”

Wakashi

“Difficult beats impossible. I’m sure even you can grasp this.”

How do you even know that it would be impossible? This sounds like a potential ultimate warrior episode, if that was still a thing.

“The King of the Eagles himself said that they can’t carry things for long, which is why he brought Gandalf from Isengard to Rohan but no further.”

You would think they could solve that issue with a simple rest stop every time that eagle needed a break, assuming they could find safe places to land.

“That was in the movies. And besides, Sauron was already destroyed at that point, so the Nazgul lost all their power (and the whole non-interference thing was technically void at that point because Sauron is gone).”

Well you got me there. I haven’t read the books in about 10 years (but I’ve watched the films an embarrassing amount of times since), so some differences between the movies and the books just blurred together in my memory, that’s my excuse (Tom Bombadil though will forever be scarred in my brain as a book-only event). To honestly debate with you, I avoided wiki, and I guess that didn’t end well, lol.

But seriously, I wonder what it would’ve been like if Frodo took the ring sooner and didn’t hesitate for nearly a decade.

Deadliest Warrior. Ultimate Warrior was a dude who legally changed his name to Warrior, then his heart went boom.

Wakashi

Oh yeah….[email protected] did mention that on their podcast recently. Thanks for the edit, lol.

Devin Wolfe

Cody’s insults are nothing really.

Max-Vader

…you’re not alluding to the thing with the eagles, are you?

Wakashi

bingo

Max-Vader

In that case congratulations on being the millionth smug idiot who thinks he’s uncovered a massive plothole when all he’s really revealed is the depths of his own ignorance.

Wakashi

I know I’m not the first person to think about that.

Cody Baier

Haha, look at him, trying to nitpick the plot of Lord of the Rings when he only knows about the movies.

Wakashi

I’ve read and watched it, if that’s what you’re talking about. My only gripe with the book compared to the movies was during the Two Towers. I didn’t like how the first have of the book was all the intersting stuff going on with Aragorn & company, and the second half was all of Frodo & Sam’s walking and walking, all lumped into the second half of the book. That was kinda rough, but at least there was Shelob at the end of it.

Devin Wolfe

“So whenever you can’t back up anything, you result to insults. Oh the internet.”

That’s Cody’s calling card don’t ya know.

Max-Vader

“No, that’s basically what I got from your argument.”
If you can’t even understand such a simple point, are you really surprised why he doesn’t bother explaining it to you? This is of course assuming this is not a really bad attempt at trolling because I have a hard time believing you could be this dense.

Wakashi

The argument I was making had to do with you saying how “nonsensical” you think HxH is. Cody was referring to the difference between a scene and a plot, I wasn’t, I know this.

He’s saying “oh it’s just like a crazy action movie.”

So why can’t he take that same mentality for HxH, and remember that it’s a shonen (younger boys) series. That’s why I’m able to forgive some of the ridiculous moments in HxH.

“the plot cannot advance unless the characters are idiots”

So if making mistakes in life automatically makes you an idiot, I guess you’re a genius, Cody, because you’re prefect, even more perfect than Cars.

Cody Baier

“So if making mistakes in life automatically makes you an idiot, I guess you’re a genius, Cody, because you’re prefect, even more perfect than Cars.”

Not the hottest comments section, but definitely the most verbose. I wish I could watch some Hunter X Hunter, but I only got room on my plate for JoJo’s and a few anime on the side.

That Man

While I have multiple issues with H x H and have been on the verge of
dropping it at several points in the series most notably during the
first half of the Greed Island arc and constantly in the Chimera Ant Arc
which has been all over the place in terms of quality, I’ve stuck with
it because its a series which constantly takes risks in deconstructing
the shounen genre, sometimes to great effect. While I think both Killua
and Gon are rather bland characters, I can see how Togashi intended for
Gon to reflect just how bizarre and unnatural a ruthless never give up
mentality can actually be while Killua on the other hand illustrates how
even the ace from the important family trained to be a powerful,
merciless assassin can’t be turned into a monster through training alone
and remains at heart a human being with human impulses. In the Greed
Island finale when Gon needlessly lets the bomber blow off his hand
simply to test himself against him in battle we see how Gon takes a
standard trait of shounen protagonists, their desire to prove
themselves, and follows it through to a surprising result. While its
healed,
this event is a brutal statement on how self destructive the traits
usually portrayed by shounen protagonists which are usually presented in
a positive light can be, a theme that is further explored in the
Chimera Ant Arc.

That Man

Then there’s Killua. Even though his training as an assassin has made him, especially earlier in the series, into a powerful fighter it is never presented in a
positive light. His lineage is not so much a part of his strength but rather a weakness which prevents him from achieving his full potential as a hunter. In the Hunter Exam Arc Killua faces off against his emotionless older brother in the final tournament where he chillingly surrenders the little humanity he has gained by being removed from the influence of his family by surrendering to Illumi despite Illumi making it clear his intention is to kill Gon once their match has concluded. Killua tells Illumi that he does not want to kill anymore and only wants to have friends and be friends with Gon to which Illumi responds that he is incapable of friendship and has been trained from birth to be a monstrous killing machine who only know how to kill. However, the pressure Illumi exudes on Killua as he threatens to fight him is too much for Killua who has been trained as an assassin to always avoid fighting stronger opponents so he surrenders, clearly incapable of bringing himself to defend Gon despite the fact that he consider him a friend. To further reinforce how Killua has accepted his role as a killer at this point, in the next battle he swiftly slays his opponent without a word despite it not being truly necessary. This leads to the Killua rescue arc which is essentially Gon and the gang chasing after Killua in order to bring him back by persuading him he is not a monster. Even how this arc ends with Silva saying how eventually Killua will return and accept he is nothing but a killer in time because that is his nature demonstrates how Killua struggles desperately to shake off the influence his family has had on him through his upbringing to assert his better nature which is really just a kid who feels very lonely and want to have friends.

That Man

And thats just the tip of the iceberg but I’ve spent enough time on this as is already.

Shane Blackwood

All I know about HxH is that it’s a lot gayer than Jojo could hope to be.
And not in the fun way either.

Wakashi

So I just read this guy’s take on why the fellowship didn’t ride the eagles to Mordor. It convinced me more than that a#$-pull reason “the eagles can’t fly to Mordor because they said so”. I’ll go with this reason over any other BS I’ve heard.

So something with actual justification is “bullshit”, but this blatantly impossible idea which rewrites the canon to boot makes sense to you? Sure.

Kerberous

Anything said by a member of The Other Side is wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fact or makes sense, it’s still wrong. Honestly, it’s quite funny how this guy accuses other people of being butthurt, but here he is reviving a dead conversation because he’s spent the last 2 months searching for something to make Max look bad.

And wtf is up with all these insane people trying to justify something that’s clearly obvious in the books and in the movies? You’re not special or smart you morons.